Supreme Court to hear double jeopardy case

The U. S. Supreme Court building stands quietly before dawn on Oct. 5 in Washington. The high court will be considering the case of Terance Gamble, who is sitting in prison today because he was prosecuted separately by Alabama and the federal government for having a gun after an earlier robbery conviction. At issue in the case is whether the justices should overturn a court-created exception to the Constitution s double-jeopardy bar that allows state and federal prosecutions for the same crime. (AP Photo/J. David Ake, File)

By MARK SHERMAN,Associated Press</strong>

WASHINGTON (AP) The Supreme Court is set to hear arguments about an exception to the Constitution s ban on being tried for the same offense. The outcome could have a spillover effect on the investigation into Russian meddling in the 2016 election.

The justices are taking up an appeal Thursday from federal prison inmate Terance Gamble. He was prosecuted separately by Alabama and the federal government for having a gun after an earlier robbery conviction.

The high court is considering whether to overturn a court-created exception to the Constitution s double-jeopardy bar that allows state and federal prosecutions for the same crime. The court s ruling could be relevant if President Donald Trump were to pardon someone implicated in special counsel Robert Mueller s probe and a state wanted to pursue its own charges against that person.

Supreme Court lawyer Tom Goldstein joked at a Washington event before the term began in October that the high court case should be called New York v. Manafort, a reference to former Trump campaign manager Paul Manafort. Trump has refused to rule out an eventual pardon for Manafort, who has been convicted of federal financial fraud and conspiracy crimes. It s by no means certain that the high court ruling will affect future prosecutions.

But Trump s Justice Department is urging the court not to depart from what it says is an unbroken line of cases reaching back nearly 170 years in favor of allowing prosecutions by state and federal authorities. Thirty-six states that include Republican-led Texas and Democratic-led New York are on the administration s side, as are advocates for Native American women who worry that a decision for Gamble would make it harder to prosecute domestic and sexual violence crimes.

Civil rights scholars at Howard University adopt a sort of middle ground that urges the court to at least preserve the federal government s ability to lead civil rights prosecutions against people who have been acquitted of state charges. Civil rights charges to fight crimes of racial violence have been a key tool for federal prosecutors, especially when Southern juries were unwilling to convict defendants. The most recent example the scholars cited is the successful federal prosecution of Los Angeles police officers who had been acquitted of state charges in the beating of Rodney King....